The Peloponnesian War: Athens and Sparta in Savage Conflict 431–404 Bc

The Peloponnesian War represents a trully epic time in the Ancient Greek World. The War was perhaps the Hellenic World's equivalent of a world war, involving at various stages Greek cities across the entire Med, Persia, Thrace, Macedon, and even Carthage. The war was also immense in that it placed two diametrically opposed rivals in Athens and Sparta, one a Naval Empire and the other a Land Power. The war also produced one of the greatest historians of all time in Thucydides, whose death prior to completing his history has meant that the later stages of the war are entrusted to an array of less talented historians. The triumph of Kagan's history is largely in its creation of a unified narrative for the war and also in its presentation of the material, including some excellent maps.The book follows a straight forward narrative structure dealing with the war in a linear fashion. What Kagan does with this narrative is intertwine a good amount of primary source material, Kagan also reveals an excellent knowledge of Attic drama which he uses to annotate his portrayal of the key Athenian players in the war. Usefully he uses his knowledge of sources other than Thucydides to rehabilitate many of the radical politician's of Athens who were so villified by our historical sources.If there is a criticism of the book, it is that Kagan has a strong bias toward Athens and importantly the concept that democracy as a form of government is superior to all others. Whilst a review on Amazon is not the place to debate the merits of Athenian Democracy, and nor is the review an attack on democracy, but rather Kagan's discussion of it. Firstly Kagan rightly challenges Thucydides opinion on matters pertaining to the democracy (he challenges his view that Pericles undermined the democracy, the Cleon, Cleophon and others where demagogues and slates Nicias) but is inconsistent, whilst he says that the assembly wasn't motivated by greed in seeking to attack Syracuse and cites complex motivations, he equally attributes to the Spartans an attitude of fear/jealousy for starting the war. It is perhaps Kagan's refusal to blame the democracy for things going wrong in the war that leaves the work slightly unbalanced in Athen's favour, equally it would have been nice of Kagan to have shown a greater appreciation of the political structures of Sparta (mixed constitution) or Boeotia (Federalism). Equally bis portrayal of Corinth and its relationship with Corcyra does seem to be against the grain of current academic opinion regarding the relationship between Mother City and Colony, Corcyra's behaviour was fairly anomalous for the period. I would also like to have seen him be more critical of Alcibiades, whose actions were always on the verge of counter-democratic conduct.The criticisms above are not an attempt to dissuade would be readers, but rather an attempt to alert people to the works bias in favour of Athens. It is important not to confuse ancient and modern democracy, Athens was a major user of slave labour both in the fleet and in their mines (20,000 deserted to Sparta when they fortified Declea) as well as using resident aliens (metics) both in their Land Army and Fleet. Although Athens was a democracy it was not built on the same principles as a modern democracy. This is an excellent work however and should be of interest to both the academic and the lay historian.

The Peloponnesian Wars were something I had heard of but had never studied so I sought out a book to illuminate things for me. Kagan's book couldn't have been a better choice.This is a highly engaging account of the savage wars between Sparta and Athens after the famous Persian invasions and before the rise of Macedonia and Alexander. Demonstrating my true ignorance on the area, many famous names rear their heads such as Pericles and Lysander and I never realised these were real people rather than dramatic ciphers for the stage! Kagan brings them all marvellously to life and mixes the social impact with battles than turn the tide one way then another.A big issue in many history books is the assumption of your intimate knowledge of the topography being discussed often leaving the reader a little baffled. However in this book there is a plethora of maps allowing you to understand why certain armies went to certain areas.This is a fascinating period of history and it's further remarkable that so much art and literature was created during such a violent time. This is a fabulous book that absolutely does justice to the period.If you liked this there's more historical debate and fun at @HistoryGems on Facebook and Twitter

This book provides the reader great insight of one of, if not the most important wars of Ancient Greece. Overall, the information and knowledge it provides is amazing teaching us all about the Commanders and various battles of the war, while also informing the reader on what was happening outside of the war in the time period. However, at times the book can be slightly fatiguing as it is more than 500 pages long and many pages have almost 600 words. Overall a great non fiction read that can be slightly tiring at points.

i have to say this is one of the best books ive ever read... having been massively interested in all things Greece i thought this book would be ideal and i was right.from start to finish it is excellently researched and very well written. you probably dont need to buy any other book on the pelopennesian war, thats how great this book is.details the massive differences between the 2 powers, sparta's amazing infantry and athens amazing navy cancelling each other out until the very end when it turned in sparta's favour... one of the most interesting subject matters you could ask for!

Really good and detailed description of major events in the ancient world. Kept a good pace throughout and managed to maintain a timeline with so much going on. Only suggestion is I like to use the maps during the chapters and would have found it easier to navigate if they had been in an appendix .

Excellent. This book forms a loose pairing with 'Lords of the Sea' which focuses on classical trieres (trireme) narratives. They even share superb maps by the same illustrator. There were many hundreds of hellene city-states and the intra-political dealings between each were truly Byzantine (that's an irony if there ever was one). Sometimes the whole edifice came crashing down and war was the only recourse due to this or that alliance's commitments or the dealings of a neutral.This war was a bloody mess; many thousand dead. War never changes.

Professor Kagan's this book is the mass-market version of his scholarly volumes on the topic. You can trust his research and I like the fact that he tells you his opinions as well other academic opinions on many things. The book is very engaging to non-professional readers who are interested in the topic of the war itself and its implication international affairs since then.